


Let Me Be the Exhale

by deathwailart



Series: Sail Your Sea [6]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Introspection, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let me be holy and warm.<br/>Let me be the exhale. The best wine.<br/>The wish on every eyelash.</p>
<p> - Stevie Edwards, Offering</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Be the Exhale

There is the long length of Mary next to her, slack with sleep in a way she never is during the day, not even with Anne because Mary's life has never allowed her such things. Anne's hasn't either but Anne still doesn't hold herself like a pirate the way Mary does – or James, it's James the pirate more than Mary really because Anne knows Mary, knows that Mary rolls her hips more than James and doesn't hunch her shoulders so to hide her breasts, they both lead with their hips, James strutting and slouching and swaggering but even that is practiced in a mirror first. Anne did that once. Not the same as Mary did and Mary did it longer for all the stories that have ever been whispered into her skin, Mary's lips dark and red, wet with rum but still tasting like salt and smoke, blood and gunpowder. But Anne did it like most everyone must. A private little thing you don't talk about where you learn how to stand and Anne has never been ashamed of who and what she is, she has never apologised or made herself smaller, she has always tilted her chin and cocked her hip and accepted what will come her, no, not accepted, she has _met_ whatever comes her way and she has been ready and defiant. But Anne is rolling hips and showing off that she's a woman (she's a girl, they say that, James sticks up for her, Mary even more, but she's still a girl to them sometimes because none of them know what it's like to be a woman, to not ever be a girl because you're a child and then one day you're not and you're married and maybe it's terrible and awful or it's wonderful or it just _is_ ) and bending that to her will because that's the hand she was dealt and she's made sure it's her hand.  
  
Mary understands that because Mary was dealt a different hand and did the same thing with it.  
  
She won't have long to look because that's who Mary is and Anne's never seen a soul go from dead sleep to wakefulness so fast but she's seen the glimpses of Mary's other life, the shadow life she flits in and out of that has her cursing Edward as though he's the Devil himself and there's not another way. One pistol, one knife and it's over. Others taught Anne how to fight and how to hold a weapon but Mary taught her how to kill and how to move close so no one hears her coming. But she looks because there's a tightness about Mary that she hates even if she's the one that can get rid of it and accept the weight that leans against her when nights are drawing to a close or after some skirmish, when Mary is wild eyes and bloodied to her wrists and all up her coat and at her lips and Anne kisses her and feels alive.  
  
She curves a hand around Mary's bony hip, slides it up and along her side, over her ribs then down and across to feel her heart and she's never told Mary how false her slow waking routine looks once you see it all the time because sometimes it's better to pretend and if she and Mary share more honesty between one another than with anyone else so it's fine to say nothing and lean in to brush her nose against hers. (It's all in the fact that Mary never looks confused because she can't afford to, she has to know her surroundings and she never ever forgets, not exhausted, not ill, not drunk.)  
  
"S'posed to be sleeping," Mary murmurs next to her and Anne smiles, other hand reaching out so she can gently stroke Mary's bottom lip with her thumb, the barest of touches and Mary smiles, not even opening her eyes and that always send a thrill through Anne. That Mary trusts her. Loves her. Feels safe enough to lie next to her without immediately checking that the room is as safe as she made it when they staggered in her.  
  
"You've been away too long again, it's not often I get you all to myself in a bed without one of us having to be in charge of a ship."  
  
"And all you're doing is looking?" One eye opens and Anne smiles, leaning in to rub her nose against Mary's then allowing herself to be tugged just a little closer and into a kiss.  
  
"Maybe I want to look, are you really objecting?"  
  
"Might have other things in mind. Might have another _thousand_ things in mind."  
  
"A thousand?" It's easy to pretend to sound shocked as she leans up on her elbows to stare down at Mary who rolls onto her back, the sheets sliding low about her hips, a cocky smirk on her face. "Mary Read you haven't even shown me a hundred yet."  
  
"Well then, I'd best make up for that hadn't I?"  
  
Mary moves as if to push Anne to lie back so she can stretch out on top but Anne catches her wrists and shakes her head and there's a moment where they stare at one another in the dark, Mary's eyes still bright and Anne wonders if she'll object but she lies back. More than that, she allows Anne to pin her wrists in one hand – Anne has a good grip, too many men have been surprised to learn that when she's throwing them out but Mary could break her hold without breaking a sweat – and keeps them there when Anne lets go. It's not like Mary's always in control but as much as Jack is good to her, Mary's just that bit better, more like she's worshipping her and there's something new to learn, about herself or about Mary, a different sort of pleasure than with Jack who, bless his soul, is always that bit too urgent to hurry up and get to the action.  
  
She's still a little wobbly with sleep herself so she takes it slow, soft little kisses down Mary's neck and down to the tattoo on her chest that hadn't been nearly as interesting until she found out the truth and then she'd been fascinated. She still is but it's not as if Mary complains when she's tracing the lines with her fingers, lips and tongue, instead there's just the hitch of her breathing as she arches up, pressing closer until Anne guides her back down. She kisses down, down, down, hands sliding up to cup Mary's breasts, nipples already hard from the chill in the air and smiles when Mary moans; a glance up confirms that her hands are still where Anne left them, fingers curling in empty air when she nips a sharp hipbone, smirk on her face.  
  
When she rises up on her knees, Mary curses, breath hissing between her teeth.  
  
"Ask nicely," Anne says, walking her fingers up a muscled thigh, close but not quite where Mary wants it no matter how she arches her back and squirms.  
  
"Since when has nice ever been a thing between us?" Mary's just the right side of tired to sound grumpy and almost petulant, Anne hiding her smile by kissing the soft skin of her thigh she makes a noise that's the closest she gets to a whine, muscles taut beneath Anne's lips. " _Please_ ," she whispers at last, when Anne has kissed up to where her thigh meets her hip and then back down to her knee to stroke the back of it because it makes Mary gasp "Please Annie—"  
  
She's gentle when she finally moves, not bothering with any clever line because Mary's holding herself just the way Anne wants her and it's something she hasn't tried, not exactly, never much beyond what she wanted done and what she wanted to do and the negotiations that have always been enthusiastic. It's a strange rush to be the one to dictate so much of it as she nudges Mary's thighs further apart, kissing her inner thigh again because she can, because the skin is smooth on the right and bears an old puckered scar on the left that doesn't feel much except right at the edges and if she nips or drags a nail across just right then Mary groans from somewhere deep in her bones and it always sends a thrill down Anne's spine. Jack might tease them – or he'll make huffy jealous noises if he's in one of those moods – about the noise they make but there's a strange sort of pride she feels in making Mary come apart under her touch like now. She arches her back at the first touch of Anne's tongue to her clit, gentle and delicate because it's early and she doesn't want it to be too much, feet planted flat on the bed because Anne only pressed her hands down, she didn't think about her legs.  
  
( _There's always next time_ , she thinks, followed swiftly by, _we'd need a proper bed with real posts for that._ )  
  
Mary never babbles but there's a running commentary that usually comes with Mary's fingers tangled in her hair, a hand stroking across her cheek or over her lips or wherever Mary can touch and when she chances another look up it has her slipping a hand between her own legs because Mary's eyes are so dark, flushed red all the way down her chest. She draws a path with her tongue, slides the tips of her fingers along her labia lightly enough to have her shivering until her mouth travels back up to her clit, slow and lazy because she can, because she can hear the sea lapping back and forth outside their window and she can smell the salt of Mary's skin and the heat of her, the broken little crack in her voice when she says Anne's name.  
  
Her hands are still above her head and it makes her buck against the heel of her hand for a moment, as if it will make it better, not worse.  
  
When she sucks Mary's clit into her mouth, grazing her teeth lightly, there's a bitten-off yelp as she rocks down and against Anne so she rewards her with a careful finger sliding inside and then another, because she's slick and her legs fall apart just a fraction more with the first, sighing when she moves them slowly before they find a rhythm because no matter who leads, they always end up meeting in the middle, taking turns. So she speeds up, closes her eyes and sucks Mary's clit more insistently and her sighs are moans are pleas are wordless shuddering moans and she slides her fingers free to lick into her, thumb rubbing tight circles on her clit under she comes with a curse. Anne's heart is pounding in her ears and the heat between her legs is almost unbearable as she keeps going until Mary is whining and pulling away, her thighs trembling.  
  
Her hands are still there. Still above her hand, curled into fists so tight the knuckles are white and when she unfurls them there are bloodied crescents from Mary's nails.  
  
She needs a moment, she decides, resting her head on Mary's thigh as she breathes, tries to come back to herself until she can actually drag herself up the bed to settle next to Mary, mostly on her belly so she can press down against her own hand, head on Mary's shoulder as she rolls her hips, tasting Mary on her lips. She wants to do it again, fifty times, a hundred times, Mary doing exactly as she wants because Anne's naivety was long gone by the time James Kidd who was also Mary Read came into her life but she still managed to open Anne's eyes and there's always going to be that touch of something an awful lot like awe when she looks at her, so to have her there, to have her doing just as Anne instructed…  
  
She cries out, frames her clit with her fore and the hand that had a death grip on the sheets ends up there too, a finger at her clit and she's close, so close to tipping over the edge but not quite when Mary's voice brings her back to the present.  
  
"Anne," and Mary's voice is hoarse from holding back a shout, bottom lip red and swollen from where she bit down to stifle herself, "please, can I-" Anne's too gone to be able to speak much herself so she fumbles for Mary's hands, drags one down to her wrist so she can feel her tendons flex as she moves and the other so Mary's long fingers are just at her entrance, able to feel how hot and wet she is for her and she comes with a rush, mouth pressed against Mary's shoulder, gasping against her skin.  
  
They're hot and sticky when they're done, when Anne has stopped chasing the aftershocks and Mary has stretched and popped her joints from holding herself so still, rolling her shoulders and working the feeling back into her arms and Mary is a long line by her side again, sated smile on her face. Her hair is plastered to her brow and her lip is close to bleeding and she's flushed along the golden and pale length of her , slack with something even better than sleep this time. Anne allows herself to be gathered close, warm and safe and loved, stroking Mary's cheek until her eyelashes flutter so she can stay up to watch the sunlight paint her gold.


End file.
